Lands has emerged as a dominant strategy in Legacy over the last couple of years. The addition of the Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage combo gave the deck the ability to win games more quickly and to just race combo decks, which shored up a huge weakness of the strategy. However, the Life from the Loam archetype never really made the transition over to Vintage. In this week's Team Vintage Super League, we saw an interesting take on Life from the Loam in Vintage that may have some kind of staying power:

Lands - Vintage | Team Channel Fireball, Team Vintage Super League

• Instants (8)
• 2 Crop Rotation
• 3 Ancient Grudge
• 3 Mental Misstep

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Gamble
• 4 Life from the Loam

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Fastbond
• 2 Manabond
• 4 Exploration

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Chalice of the Void
• 1 Mox Diamond
• 1 Mox Emerald
• 1 Mox Ruby
• 2 Null Rod

• Lands (34)
• 1 Snow-Covered Forest
• 1 Bayou
• 1 Glacial Chasm
• 1 Karakas
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Taiga
• 2 Ghost Quarter
• 2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
• 3 Dark Depths
• 3 Grove of the Burnwillows
• 3 Riftstone Portal
• 3 Windswept Heath
• 4 Bazaar of Baghdad
• 4 Thespian's Stage
• 4 Wasteland

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 4 Hollow One
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Mindbreak Trap
• 2 Nature's Claim
• 1 Null Rod
• 2 Punishing Fire
• 1 Ray of Revelation
• 1 Sphere of Resistance

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So with all these potential edges, why haven't we seen this strategy before? There are three big issues which need to be resolved. First, Dredge is a deck that people have to dedicate substantial sideboard slots to, which means that you have to be prepared to get hit by cards like Leyline of the Void and Ravenous Trap, which is a problem for Life from the Loam strategies. Second, your mana denial plan is much weaker in a format with a bunch of Moxen and other fast mana. Null Rods and Ancient Grudges help, but don't completely resolve this issue. Thirdly, the problems that this archetype has with fast combo in Legacy are only more pronounced in Vintage.

All in all, if you're headed to a Vintage event and expecting largely fair decks or Workshops, this seems like a strategy that could catch people by surprise. The sideboard plan of Hollow One letting you sidestep graveyard hate is interesting, and the deck has a lot of interesting tools ranging from Punishing Fire to Sphere of Resistance. There's a surprising amount of flexibility here, and I can't wait to see if players can turn this shell into a real player in Vintage.